“Then why didn’t he say so?”
“As far as I could make out, you didn’t give him a chance.”
Miss Silverton wavered.
“I always hate going back after I’ve walked out on a show,” she said. “It seems so weak!”
“Not a bit of it! They’ll give three hearty cheers and think you a topper. Besides, you’ve got to go to New York in any case. To take Percy to a vet., you know, what!”
“Of course. How right you always are!” Miss Silverton hesitated again. “Would you really be glad if I went back to the show?”
“I’d go singing about the hotel! Great pal of mine, Benham. A thoroughly cheery old bean, and very cut up about the whole affair. Besides, think of all the coves thrown out of work–the thingummabobs and the poor what-d’you-call-’ems!”
“Very well.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Yes.”
“I say, you really are one of the best! Absolutely like mother made! That’s fine! Well, I think I’ll be saying good night.”
“Good night. And thank you so much!”
“Oh, no, rather not!”
Archie moved to the door.
“Oh, by the way.”
“Yes?”
“If I were you, I think I should catch the very first train you can get to New York.-You see–er–you ought to take Percy to the vet. as soon as ever you can.”
“You really do think of everything,” said Miss Silverton.
“Yes,” said Archie, meditatively.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SAD CASE OF LOONEY BIDDLE
Archie was a simple soul, and, as is the case with most simple souls, gratitude came easily to him. He appreciated kind treatment. And when, on the following day, Lucille returned to the Hermitage, all smiles and affection, and made no further reference to Beauty’s Eyes and the flies that got into them, he was conscious of a keen desire to show some solid recognition of this magnanimity. Few wives, he was aware, could have had the nobility and what not to refrain from occasionally turning the conversation in the direction of the above-mentioned topics. It had not needed this behaviour on her part to convince him that Lucille was a topper and a corker and one of the very best, for he had been cognisant of these facts since the first moment he had met her: but what he did feel was that she deserved to be rewarded in no uncertain manner. And it seemed a happy coincidence to him that her birthday should be coming along in the next week or so. Surely, felt Archie, he could whack up some sort of a not unjuicy gift for that occasion–something pretty ripe that would make a substantial hit with the dear girl. Surely something would come along to relieve his chronic impecuniosity for just sufficient length of time to enable him to spread himself on this great occasion.
And, as if in direct answer to prayer, an almost forgotten aunt in England suddenly, out of an absolutely blue sky, shot no less a sum than five hundred dollars across the ocean. The present was so lavish and unexpected that Archie had the awed feeling of one who participates in a miracle. He felt, like Herbert Parker, that the righteous was not forsaken. It was the sort of thing that restored a fellow’s faith in human nature. For nearly a week he went about in a happy trance: and when, by thrift and enterprise–that is to say, by betting Reggie van Tuyl that the New York Giants would win the opening game of the series against the Pittsburg baseball team–he contrived to double his capital, what it amounted to was simply that life had nothing more to offer. He was actually in a position to go to a thousand dollars for Lucille’s birthday present. He gathered in Mr. van Tuyl, of whose taste in these matters he had a high opinion, and dragged him off to a jeweller’s on Broadway.
The jeweller, a stout, comfortable man, leaned on the counter and fingered lovingly the bracelet which he had lifted out of its nest of blue plush. Archie, leaning on the other side of the counter, inspected the bracelet searchingly, wishing that he knew more about these things; for he had rather a sort of idea that the merchant was scheming to do him in the eyeball. In a chair by his side, Reggie van Tuyl, half asleep as usual, yawned despondently. He had permitted Archie to lug him into this shop; and he wanted to buy something and go. Any form of sustained concentration fatigued Reggie.